“EFF published a paper advocating voluntary collective licensing for P2P, a system that would get artists paid and allow fans to keep sharing music however they like for a flat fee. It seems the major record labels may finally be coming around to this sen

“We do not believe that reasonable people would argue as to whether the website located at http://www.getafirstlife.com/ constitutes parody – it clearly is. Linden Lab is well known among its customers and in the general business community as a company

Smith is nothing if not a grafter. She prickles at the modern notion of rock as a glamorous vocation, of stars made overnight, of the MTV generation’s iPodded consumerism. “You have to kick doors open yourself. When people come up to me and say, ‘Patti, nobody wants to hear my CD and I don’t have enough money for equipment,’ I say, ‘Well, get a job, y’know?’ That’s what I did. You get people who say, ‘The government won’t give me a grant and I can’t do my art.’ I say, ‘Fuck you, it’s your own fault, you expect the government to give you a hand? The government is corrupt. Do what it takes. You do babysitting jobs, you work in the factory, you work in the bookstore or become a pickpocket, y’know? But whatever. Get a job.’ Work is really good for an artist.” Her features sharpen and there is a fierce set to her mouth. “My son is one of the best guitar players I’ve ever heard. And how does he make his money? He does manual labour, he does landscaping, he digs ditches. He’s out there sometimes eight to 12 hours a day because he lives in Detroit and it’s hard to get work there. But it’s good, it’s good. Artists should work.”

MTAA rather miss the point of Cory Doctorow and his comments on the Cloud Gate fiasco.Calling for an Anish Kapoor sculpture to be melted down for scrap is usually the sign of a healthy mind. Unless it’s one of his powderier confections, obviously. Anyone who finds calling for the destruction of an artwork disturbing really needs to read up on their art history beyond The Culture Wars.Calling for an Anish Kapoor sculpture to be melted down for scrap in the course of a battle over public space and representation, issues that are key to art and society, issimply a rhetorical expression of strongly held opinion over those issues. And as someone who cares passionately about art, I would say in all seriousness that if a work of art is that harmful to society (in a practical rather than a symbolic way), destroying it is the less harmful option for art itself.